With the popularity of networks, network application programs such as graphical browsers, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer and the like, have become a common interface for accessing network resources. Typically, a web page or equivalent data construct is loaded from a network by the browser, and the web page contains data and links to resources obtainable over one or more networks, e.g., intranets, the Internet, wide area networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), etc.
Unfortunately, graphical browsers are typically limited in the ways in which they can receive input to indicate a selection of a link to a resource in the web page. Generally, a graphical browser can only be directed to a new resource by using a mouse to select a link, or by using keystrokes to move an input focus to the address bar of the browser so that an address can be manually (and generally tediously) entered. Requiring clicking on a link can be inconvenient for people having certain disabilities, as well as for people in restricted environments in which a mouse cannot be utilized. In some graphical browsers, one can use the tab key to single-step through all link of a web page, and then select a particular link by pressing the “enter” key.
In a non-graphical context, a browser called “Lynx” (developed by the Distributed Computing Group within Academic Computing Services of The University of Kansas), and typically used by way of a text terminal in Unix-type operating systems, e.g., Unix, Linux, etc., may be used to text-view graphical web pages. Since many links within a web page are graphical and inaccessible to Lynx, Lynx may be used to generate a new web page containing enumerated links for elements that would have been selectable in a web page being viewed, had a typical graphical-view and mouse been available. Unfortunately, this page of enumerated links is inconvenient as the numbered links are provided out of the context of the web page.